Life — May 30, 1889 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“While there's Life theze’s Hope.” VOL, XIII. MAY 30, 1889. No. 335. 28 Wi TWe THIRD STREET, NEW YORK, Published every Thursday, $5.00 a year in advance, postage free. | Single copies, ro cents, Back numbers can be had by applying to this office. Vol. I, bound, $30.00; Vol. Il., bound, $10.00; Vols Illy 1V., V., Vin VIL., VIII., IX., X., XI. and XII,, bound, or in flat numbers, at regular rates. Rejected contributions will be destroyed unless accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. Subscribers wishing address changed will greatly facilitate matters by sending old address as well as new. HE sympathy of this journal is offered to Doctors De- pew and Towne for their awkward difference of opinion as to the value of certain historical researches made by Dr. T. at Dr. D.’s request. It is traditionally deplorable that doctors should disagree, but Dr. Depew, for one, seems likely to survive this difference. It’s a sick lion, indeed, who can’t stand the disparagement of his own jackal. * * * F there are any parties not involved in a Chicago divorce case that LIFE does not envy, it is those doctors who did the autopsy on Mind-reader Bishop. Of course they are satisfied that Bishop was dead when they looked into him, but they never will be able to convince the survivors most intimately concerned that he wasn't in a trance. Doctors’ etiquette is a mystery that LIFE makes no pretense of hav- ing penetrated, but to us, as to very many judicious contem- poraries, that autopsy seems a bit of professional imperti- nence unmatched since Prof. Proctor was hurried to his death from the Westminster Hotel under a doctor's orders. * * * T= burden of comment upon the career of Mr. Thorn- dike Rice, whose untimely death brought so wide an expression of regret, was that, notwithstanding that his cir- cumstances were notably comfortable, he was willing to work. He did work hard, and with very gratifying results. In an article in the Sv some time ago, the ingenious Mr. Matthew Marshall, discussing rich young men, expressed the opinion that very great fortunes stimulated ambition, whereas mere competences lulled and stifled it. If report is true, Mr. Rice's fortune was large enough to be stimulative. The question how far his reputation in the world of letters is due to it is one that we would like to hear Mr. Marshall discuss. Riches are wings only when they are adjusted to the neces- sities of persons who want to fly. Mr. Rice seems to have been of that sort. He got a good deal out of a short life, but he seems never to have got himself a home; and who would call a homeless life enviable ? OL. DANA of the Sz, and Col. Miller of the Zzmes, disagree about the value of filth to the circulation of a newspaper. Col. Miller told the young men at Dartmouth, in effect, that it was no great trick to make a paper circulate. You had only to make it nasty as the law would permit and plenty of people would buy it. More than half the people who buy newspapers, Col. Miller thought, liked them to be nasty, and would purchase that sort in preference to clean. Col. Dana is an optimist about his fellow-men (the Grants, Mr. Hayes and Mr. Cleveland being, of course, excepted), and the vigor with which he shook his head at Col. Miller’s as- sertions, and the facts that he put in evidence, were good to see. For our own part, LIFE would rather believe Col. Dana. It thrives on the taste among readers for pure and discreetly hilarious literature, and has never had any experience to make it believe that nastiness is a source of prosperity. * * * F Governor Hill and the State Legislature could have combined their wisdom and energies, they might, between them, have distinguished the late session of the legislature by some good laws. As it is, the legislature has passed a number of defective bills on important subjects, some of which the Governor has vetoed. The Saxton ballot-reform bill was one of them. There was wisdom enough at Albany to have made a first-rate ballot-bill, but Governor Hill em- ployed his portion in demonstrating why he ought not to sign the bill that was sent to him, and it is an interesting question whether such intellectual gifts as the Republican chiefs in the Assembly possessed were not occupied in devising such a bill as they believed that the Governor wouldn't sign. None would be content to regard the Governor as the uncompro- mising foe of reform of every kind without reading his veto message on the Saxton bill. Lire doubts if Moses himself could have drawn a high-license bill that the Governor would sign, but it does believe—somewhat timidly—that he would have signed a good bill to prevent bribery at elections if he had had a chance. * * * NE thing the State Legislature did that is a relief. It passed a bill which is expected at least to abate the miseries of convicts confined without work. It should have been done long ago. * * * HE attention of the future historian is hereby called to the report that Mrs. Harrison has been stocking a Washington junk-shop with documents from the attic of the White House. So there! comicbooks.com